nationalism Archive

Whither goes Scotland? The prospect of Scottish independence has been an energizing topic, both within Scotland and farther afield. It’s surreal for me, as a Scotsman myself, to have heard political commentators discuss this topic in the most bizarrely narrow terms, during the run-up to the referendum. Outsiders seem to have a very confused understanding of Scotland’s situation in general, let alone the referendum specifically and, by extension, our prospects for making our way in the world. Their misconceptions are forgivable, but as much as they can be forgiven, they can’t be forgotten — and mustn’t go uncorrected, if facts are to win out over fears.

Among commentators on the Dissident Right, demography is a major bone of contention — most especially regarding the fears and figures surrounding immigration. Fear-mongering about Scottish independence has apparently afflicted the alternative right blogosphere as much as it has the mainstream of British politics. In this, we have a clear testament to the power of the mass media and organized financial interests (both of which closed ranks against independence) to influence even those seemingly on the fringes of their hegemony. Scottish independence has, by and large, exactly the same institutional enemies as patriotic immigration reform. This alone must make serious food for thought, to be digested slowly. Beside this, there is the question of hard facts, the question addressed — and answered, in some measure — by this article.

What is needed at this point is not more reflexive condemnation of Scottish independence as an option for our nation, but a certain amount of disabuse and serious re-thinking about the issue. The same, tired, old lines can be repeated ad nauseam, but they’re no longer really fooling anyone — whether they’re bemoaning the uncertain prospect of Scotland going her own way or assuming that the ‘No’ vote is anything other than a temporary victory, if indeed a victory at all. We’re told that it means both that (1) the issue is now settled (Clue #1: it’s not); and (2) remaining part of the union is somehow better than the alternative (Clue #2: it’s not). In both cases, it amounts to little more than wishful thinking. Again, rather than uncritical acceptance of the scaremongering narrative what we need instead is reference to simple facts, which show this narrative to be irrational and un-constructive.

The facts, in this case, need a spokesman with a different perspective. Since I’m in a position to clear this up and have already, in a previous article (namely, ‘England’s Missed Opportunity’ for the Civil Liberty website), addressed the demographic differences between Scotland and England in a cursory comparison of the proportions, it behoves me now to give a more detailed analysis.

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Demography and Ethnicity

First, let’s expand on the statistics to which I alluded in the earlier article.

“A quick glance at the British census of 2011 shows the discrepancies in the statistics, between Scotland and England. The figures show that Scotland at the time of the census had a population which was about ninety-six per cent European, while England’s was about eight-five per cent. That’s not a small difference. Given the size of England and its much larger population, something around fifteen per cent is a lot of foreigners, their greater numbers making them far harder to assimilate culturally, if nothing else.

“Supposing Scotland left the United Kingdom, not only may there be the much-touted (perhaps oversimplified) right-ward shift in the make-up of the British parliament, but we will additionally see the English forced to look more closely at their own demography, as the non-European elements will suddenly become a bigger proportion of the UK population — and less pleasant fellow citizens than we Scots.”

The 2011 census to which I referred showed that nearly thirteen per cent (12.83%) of the population of Britain was non-white/non-European at that time, if we count the unspecified ‘Mixed’ as being non-European since it is a category for those who are not fully so or those whose heritage is a mixture of two or more non-European ethnicities (and this author counts them as such simply for the purposes of illustrating the extent of immigration and foreign birth-rates). The non-white statistic for England alone in this census was nearly fifteen per cent (14.6%). It may not sound like a huge difference between the UK baseline and England’s higher proportion, until one considers that the equivalent figure for Scotland is just under four per cent (3.98%), making Scotland ninety-six per cent (96.02%) native European as against England’s eighty-five (85.4%) at the time of the same census. This is not a small difference, by any stretch of the imagination.

Native births also merit a mention here. The percentage of Scotland’s population born outside the UK was around seven per cent (7%) versus the UK’s almost fourteen per cent (14%) or, in other words, nearly double.

Out of all of Scotland’s cities, Glasgow has the highest proportion of ethnic minorities at twelve per cent (12%) of the population. This means that our dear green place, at eighty-eight per cent (88%) native European (the lowest figure for a Scottish city), is still significantly above the English average.

When I said that “[g]iven the size of England and its much larger population, something around fifteen per cent is a lot of foreigners”, what I meant by ‘a lot’ was specifically the 7,731,314 identified by the 2011 census as non-white, non-Europeans resident in England. In other words, England’s population of mostly unassimilable aliens is larger than Scotland’s population period. Yes, to repeat that, more than our entire population.

The figures over time are also interesting. In the ten years from the census of 2001 to that of 2011, immigration and foreign birth-rates decreased Scotland’s white European proportion of her population by less than two per cent (1.97%) as against the nearly six per cent (5.6%) drop experienced by England over the same period. It’s estimated that about half of the birth rate in England and Wales right now is attributable to foreign (mostly non-European) fecundity.

By mid-century, projected at current rates, the United Kingdom will be the most ethnically diverse state in the West, overtaking the United States(!) as the world’s great ‘melting pot’. 2066 has been pinponted as the year when white Britons will become a minority in the British isles. Needless to say, the vast majority of this is accounted for by English demography alone and very little of it by Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

These numbers speak for themselves. Supposing we believe, as European Rightists are supposed to do, that ‘Demography Is Destiny’, then Scotland’s destiny is far more viable than England’s. It’s hard to adequately communicate just how far-reaching the ramifications of these divergent numbers are for the nations in question. At this point, the quantitative variables touch against and become the qualitative. It was accordingly that I wrote of the political ramifications of Scottish independence — the ‘ripple effect’ — in the Civil Liberty article.

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The Verdict of the ‘Dismal Science’

What about fiscal, economic and employment figures?

First, Scotland contributes more in tax revenues than the rest. Recent figures show that Scotland paid nine point six per cent (9.6%) of the tax revenues last year and cost nine point three (9.3%), a net gain (0.3%) for the Treasury with regard to Scots. Scots have contributed more per head than the UK per capita figures for over thirty years. Indeed, despite selective citation of spending figures in Westminster and inane drivelling about ‘the Barnett formula’, suggesting we cost more than we contribute, it is the worst kept secret that we do much better than the rest of the UK off our own backs. Supposing Scots wanted to live high on the hob, on the rest of Britain’s ‘dime’ (as our American friends would put it), then why do Scots consistently and overwhelmingly seek the alternative of increased taxation powers at home? Block grants from the British state would do just fine were that the case; and yet, we oppose them. Why, indeed, do we want to support our spending with taxes raised in Scotland alone? The answer is simple: we want to have spent in Scotland what is raised in Scotland. It’s in Westminster’s interest, not ours, to keep us beholden to HM Treasury.

In addition to proportionately greater tax revenues, the rate of unemployment is lower in Scotland (6.4%) than any of the other three constituent countries in the United Kingdom; and this, despite the constant depiction of Scots as scroungers. This also means that unemployment has also returned to a low not seen in Scotland since 2009.

Food production is another area of interest. One of the scare stories told about independence was that we would ‘starve’ without the rest of the UK’s acreage to feed us. This is pure fantasy; wrong in a number of ways. In fact, Scottish agriculture is far more productive by comparison with the rest of the UK. Every year, we produce proportionately far more in crops and livestock than England, whether you measure per head or per hectare. We constitute less than ten per cent of the total UK population and yet, year after year, our farmers and our land produce consistently contribute over ten per cent of the total agricultural food production for these isles. Additionally, when you adjust the figures to show food produce for human consumption alone, we produce more than twice what England does, by any measure.

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‘Scottish-ness’ and Ethnic Nationalism

There are more subjective factors as well. A figure which I neglected to mention in the Civil Liberty piece, which was relevant to the difference in national character between the Scots and the English, was national identity statistics. Specifically, I mean self-reported national identity, a question included in the 2011 census. The answer options for this question were ‘Scottish only’, ‘Scottish and British’, ‘British only’, ‘Scottish and Other’ and ‘Other’ non-Scottish. The majority of those who answered opted for the first answer, ‘Scottish only’, while in total there were between eighty-two and eighty-three per cent (82-83%) who identified as Scottish in some way. This figure trumped those for ‘Englishness’ in England and ‘Welshness’ in Wales.

Moreover, ‘Scottish-ness’ became a good predictor of how strongly areas would vote in last month’s referendum. The most strongly ‘No’-voting cities in Scotland, namely Edinburgh (61.1% ‘No’) and Aberdeen (60.4% ‘No’ in the Aberdeenshire council area as a whole) were also the ones returning the lowest levels of self-identified ‘Scottish-ness’ in the 2011 census, a respective seventy (70%) and seventy-five per cent (75%). Even so, the interesting thing is not simply that these cities both returned the lowest figures for Scottish nationality and the highest proportion of ‘No’ votes in last month’s referendum (both over 5% the national average); but even more so that their demographics for those born in Scotland almost perfectly match the two results, at seventy (70%) and seventy-five per cent (75%) respectively. Now, as of 2011, Aberdeen has the largest share of non-UK-born residents in Scotland (15.9%), whereas Edinburgh, although its share is a tenth of a percentage point lower (15.8%) has the largest population of non-UK-born residents in absolute terms.

In the ten years between the censuses, the percentage of the Edinburgh population born in Scotland specifically fell from seventy-eight (78%) in 2001 to seventy (70%) in 2011, the best part of ten per cent. Our former ‘Athens of the North’ is becoming — and has already become to quite an extent — a deracinated cosmopolis.

These two cities are really the notable exceptions which prove the ‘Scottish-ness’ rule. So, what does the high level of Scottish national feeling mean for demography? What exactly is the sticking point with Scottish nationalism, independence and immigration?

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Independence and Immigration

The white paper ‘Scotland’s Future’ (PDF) makes the immigration priorities of the Scottish Government clear: a couple tens of thousands of skilled workers, supplemented by university students. This is the heart of the SNP’s immigration platform. According to this white paper, “[the Scottish] Government will take forward a points-based approach targeted at particular Scottish requirements. The system will enable us to meet the needs of Scottish society with greater flexibility, for example by providing incentives to migrants who move to live and work in more remote geographical areas, assisting with community sustainability, or adding new categories of skills.” (p.270)

The proposals regarding students are even more precise. “A particular issue for Scotland is the post-study work visa”, according to the Scottish Government.

“There are over 30,000 international students from more than 150 countries in Scotland; over 11 per cent of all students studying in Scotland are drawn from elsewhere in the EU and about 10 per cent are from the rest of the world. This Government plans to reintroduce the post-study work visa. This visa will encourage more talented people from around the world to further their education in Scotland, providing income for Scotland’s education institutions and contributing to the local economy and community diversity.” (Ibid.)

Disappointing concessions to PC and fashionable phraseology (e.g. ‘community diversity’) aside, the main concerns of the Scottish Government speak quite clearly from the text. This is all a fancy way of saying that the immigration concerns are economic — specifically to benefit the national economy, rather than the narrower needs of corporate interests — and result from pragmatic politics.

Skilled professionals and graduates are not particularly objectionable categories of newcomer. Those also happen to be the two groups least opposed by Scottish public opinion. The Migration Observatory survey touches on this: “Only a minority wish to reduce immigration of highly-skilled workers (23%) and university students (22%)”.

Conveniently, the more vague and generous aspects of the SNP’s immigration platform (that is, generous from the immigrant’s point of view) benefit from the fact that Scotland doesn’t currently set its own immigration policies. So, the SNP get to appear generous without actually giving anything away. There are compelling reasons to believe this would change, if the Scottish Government became the government of a sovereign nation.

Besides, the SNP’s immigration policy, even if adopted as proposed, would not lead to imminent minority status and replacement for native-born ethnic Scots by mid-century, whereas remaining in the United Kingdom would push us farther and faster in that direction with every passing year. So, all in all, the worst-case-scenario of independence with the SNP is better than the best-case-scenario staying in the UK.

Now, we know the SNP’s position on immigration, but where to real flesh-and-blood Scots stand on the issue?

The University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory (an excellent academic source for immigration data, by the way) reports in its Scottish Public Opinion survey ‘Immigration and Independence’ (PDF) that a majority of Scots, fifty-eight per cent (58%) still want to see immigration reduced, compared with England’s seventy-five per cent (75%). The fifty-eight splits into thirty-seven (37%) who want to see immigration ‘reduced a lot’ and twenty-one (21%) ‘reduced a little’. More importantly, only ten per cent (10%) wanted to see immigration actually increased (versus 8% for England and Wales).

In February of this year, an article from the BBC (‘Immigration: Is Scotland really different?’) cited the main figures of the Migration Observatory survey (58% vs 75%), along with those of the annual British Social Attitudes Survey. BSAS places our opposition at around sixty-nine per cent (69%) compared with England’s seventy-eight (78%). The range of difference these two sources give us, namely the 9-16% range, is quite considerable, but also understandable in light of the innocence that comes with homogeneity.

Scots on average have much less contact with immigrants, much less harmful contact in particular, and this is reflected in our relative magnanimity toward them. Furthermore, our attitudes also reflect differences in what is meant in context by ‘immigration’, i.e. different kinds of immigration and different kinds of immigrant. Are we talking about EU or non-EU immigration? Students or asylum seekers? Highly skilled workers for specifiable jobs or incalculable masses of cheap labour? Legal or illegal?

Interestingly, Scots and other Britons have different things in mind. The Migration Observatory survey shows that more Scots thought of immigrants as more likely to come from the EU than did respondents in England and Wales; “similar numbers had EU and non-EU citizens in mind (64% and 65%, respectively) while respondents in England and Wales were more likely to report thinking of non-EU citizens (75%) rather than EU citizens (59%). This difference between Scotland and the rest of Britain is consistent with migration patterns, in that EU citizens make up a larger share of the migrant population in Scotland than in Britain as a whole.”

A higher proportion of our immigrants are European. Scots see more fellow Europeans as immigrants than the English do. This is bound to influence our viewpoint.

In perspective, Scotland’s opinion poll figures for opposition to current immigration policies, while not as high as English figures, are remarkably high for such a small, homogeneous country with little experience of the immense and sobering kind of demographic transformation undergone by England or, say, the United States.

Scots at a ratio of virtually two-to-one would prefer that immigration policies, as well as asylum/refugee policies, were set at Holyrood as opposed to Westminster.

Supposing Scotland were independent, though, exactly what direction would Scots (and what proportion of Scots) prefer for its immigration policy?

The Migration Observatory’s survey covered this as well: the largest number of respondents, at forty-five per cent (45%) favoured more restrictive policies and less immigration, the second largest (28%) preferred basically the same policy the UK has currently, while only fourteen per cent (14%) thought there should be more immigration.

For asylum/refugee policies, the numbers are almost the same; forty-three per cent (43%) more restrictive, twenty-nine per cent (29%) for the same as current UK policies and only sixteen per cent (16%) favouring more generous refugee and asylum rules.

So, the largest categories of opinion are for more restrictive policies regarding asylum-seekers, refugees and immigrants in general, while an overwhelming majority of those polled believed that such policies would be best set in Holyrood, rather than Westminster. These overlaps are too considerable to ignore.

Now, when you add Scottish independence to the mix, things get even more interesting. After all, independence would have an impact on immigration specifically, as surely as it would in other areas — but how would it impact these issues?

“With Scotland freed from Westminster, there would be much less reason for Scottish voters to vote Labour. This would effectively result in the collapse of Labour in Scotland. Of course, the SNP, having fulfilled its historical purpose might also face a serious drop in support as a range of new parties rose up to take advantage of the new political ecosystem.”

There is no reason to believe that immigration in particular would be immune from drastic changes to our whole way of ‘doing politics’. On the contrary, it’s probable that immigration would be more impacted than other policies. After all, what’s more crucial to the National Question than the issue of immigration and birth-rates?

Liddell may be the only one to state it with such force or nuance so far, but the academic experts seem to agree with him on the skeletal facts of the issue.

Indeed, the abovementioned BBC article quotes two Scottish scholars to the effect that independence (and, implicitly, responsibility for our own immigration policies) will change everything.

First, the article quotes Robert Wright, a professor of economics from the University of Strathclyde:

“I think the difference between Scotland and the UK really boils down to the fact there has been less immigration in Scotland than the UK for a significant period of time. So the fact I think there is more tolerance here is because there has been less of it. That does not mean there will be tolerance in the future when there is more immigration, so this will be a hurdle we have to jump later.”

So much for ‘tolerance’ in Scottish public opinion.

Next, Christina Boswell, of the Politics Department at the University of Edinburgh:

“Even if at the moment the SNP, Lib Dems and Labour are largely supportive of a more liberal approach, in the event of independence, actually the temptation to break ranks and criticise and tap into public concerns about immigration would be quite high.”

Professor Boswell’s point, interestingly, differs very slightly from Professor Wright’s in that it’s not simply about a shift in attitudes among the electorate, but an adjustment of policies and discourse among the Scottish political parties, which could potentially bring more fluidity and dynamic change to the party system in Scotland.

Everything would be up for grabs in the immediate aftermath of independence. The issue of immigration would take on newfound importance for a nation finding itself again, restructuring its identity — that is, determining what it is and what it’s not — and formulating the answer to its National Question. On this, its most pronounced weak point, the SNP would have to learn its hardest lesson: evolve or die.

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Demography Conclusions

What one senses confidently from the amassed and collated evidence is a Scotland which, overall, can work on its own — and not only that, but do better on its own. I see very few worrying signs and a great many reassuring ones. Economics, regarded as the strong point of the ‘No’ argument, reveal itself in Scotland’s favour; GDP, tax revenues and employment are all in her favour. Scottish agriculture, fisheries, oil wealth and exports are all in her favour.

Overall, the feeling of a self-evident Scottish national identity is at a high point in Scotland and shows little sign of abating. Perhaps ‘critical mass’ better intimates the political implications. Its effect is positively alchemical. In any case, we find that it trumps most other factors, including Scots’ reputed ‘tolerance’ for immigration. Scottish identity is incredibly strong and could potentially yield great gains for an explicitly identitarian Scottish political force in years to come. The song given to us in living memory reminds us that “we can still rise now and be the Nation again”.

What more is there to say? Both on the whole and in particular cases, we are presented with figures which build a compelling case for Scottish independence.

This Scotland, which we sense here, is the genuine article as it were, not the straw man of the British media’s sensationalized headlines.

One of the most thoroughly European nations in Europe; wealthy, educated, increasingly self-confident; proudly Scottish — all of this and more; this is Scotland. Simple words could never do her justice.

ʻHearest thou… what this folk sayeth? […]
Tell to thy people these much hatefuller tidings,
That here stands a good earl ‘mid his men,
Who will the home of his fathers defend.ʼ—Battle of Malden

Before proceeding farther, let us briefly review what has been said in the foregoing paragraphs about the need for ‘public affections’ and the conditions under which such affections arise and flourish. First, enlightened self-interest combined with the rule of law will not suffice, under any circumstances, to bind a large group of individuals together in a voluntary, cohesive political union. A country’s legal system, with the fear of punishment that it inspires, is a safety net, a release valve; it is not the primary guarantor of civil order. Moreover, the promise of monetary gain is not sufficient to inspire individuals to do those heroic feats and deeds of self-sacrifice without which civilized life is not sustainable, and progress is not possible. Second, affection and admiration are the true foundations of political unity and individual and collective achievement. Affection is specific; humans feel affection for specific objects (persons and things) especially those that are their own, and those that delight them. Third, nations themselves, and the ‘public’ or ‘national’ affections which sustain them, arise on the basis of racial and cultural commonality. History proves this; moreover, we know that without such commonality, there is no chance that millions of people will be bound together by a sense of common ownership of a single heritage or that they will be delighted by the same things. Fourth, public affections are not directed at faceless, abstract quantities: the state, the public. Public affections arise from the contemplation of human and other concrete embodiments of the nation: national traditions and institutions, national myths, national heroes.

Is Great Britain a nation?

If one accepts the definitions of ‘nation’ and ‘national identity’ which I have given in this essay, can one consider the political union of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (Great Britain)to be a nation? Is it possible for the English, the Scots, the Welsh, and the people of Ulster to extend their individual national affections to the whole of Britain? The short answer is yes. The longer answer is as follows. Britain is best viewed as a family of nations. At the most basic level these nations have much in common. Their peoples are of the same racial stock, they have all long embraced the Protestant branch of the Christian religion, and they share a language. It is true that, to this day, each constituent nation retains its own ancient history, its own distinct culture, its own exclusive national myths and national heroes. Butmany centuries ago, the respective histories of these nations began to intersect, their individual cultures began to be influenced by one another, and in time the nations of Britain came to embrace common myths and to celebrate common heroes; they came to seek their destiny in the world as one nation.

The best known legend to have emerged in the British Isles is the one which we have already mentioned in this essay, that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This is a truly British legend to the extent that all the nations of Britain have contributed to it and paid it homage. The legend began in Wales; Arthur was a national hero of the Welsh. But the English were so captivated by Arthur, that in time they adopted him as their own. English author Thomas Malory depicts Arthur unmistakeably as an English king, but he does not conceal Arthur’s Welsh origins. In Malory’s account, as in earlier accounts, Arthur is the son of the Welsh king Uther Pendragon, and Igraine of Cornwall. As for the Scots, some of their chroniclers of old were less than enthralled with the man whom they perceived to be a an English king. Today, however, there are Scots who insist that Arthur was from Scotland. The only possible conclusion which all of the foregoing can point to is that, through the ages, Arthur has become a legendary hero of all British people. When English, Welsh, or Scots contemplate him, they may not all see precisely the same face and personality, but they can all see a valiant and virtuous British leader. Even critics of Arthur, such as John De Fordun, cannot help but admire him. As De Fordun wrote in his Chronicle of the Scottish People (c. 1385) ‘[Arthur] possessed unheard-of virtue and generosity; he had such kindness and inherent goodness that he was loved by almost all the people.’Equally important for 21st century Britain is Sir Thomas Malory’s depiction of Arthur as the virtuous king under whom all British peoples were united. English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish knights all sat together with Arthur at the Round Table to decide the fate of their common kingdom. We have not always lived up to this ideal in the course of our long and tumultuous history, but it has always been there to guide us. The legend of the Round Table remains a source of unity for our family of nations.

If we pass from exemplary history to real history, the close interconnection of the nations of Britain receives further confirmation.The English, Welsh, and Scots, as well as the Irish, presided together over the grandest empire the world has ever seen: the British Empire. This monumental imperial project would not have been possible without the cooperation of all the nations of Britain, without a heartfelt ‘British’ patriotism to inspire every man to do his duty. Moreover, both before the advent of the British Empire, and since its decline, the nations of Britain have produced many heroes capable of evoking the admiration of all Britons. The English have contributed the lion’s share of Britain’s heroes and achievements, which is no surprise given their numerical dominance and the superiority of the political culture they inherited from their Anglo-Saxon ancestors.But many of Britain’s greatest heroes were from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.Some of these men are quoted in this essay. Edmund Burke was of Irish extraction. He is quite possibly Britain’s greatest political philosopher. He served Britain as a Member of Parliament. He never forgot his origins and never became indifferent to the struggles of the Irish. But he believed that his primary duty was to defend British interests and British liberty from whatever threatened them. He fought the monarchy when he saw it arrogating powers to itself which did not belong it. In the last years of his life, he fought with even greater fervour to prevent the horrors of French revolutionary terror from being visited upon Britain.Thomas Carlyle was from Scotland. Throughout his long life, much of it spent in London, he never ceased to be a Scotsman; his favourite poet was Robert Burns. Yet, he was to become, in the words of Alan Massie, ‘the greatest moral force in Victorian England’[i] He was committed to a British nation, one forged politically by the English, and encompassing the cultures of all its constituent nations. The pressing problems of the British nation as a whole, and of its empire, were the problems he sought to solve.

British identity does not replace English, Scottish, or Welsh identity. Rather, it is an additional identity which encompasses them all. A British nation was possible because of the racial and cultural commonality of all British peoples. Great Britain is the result of centuries of cultural and political interaction between the individual nations of the British Isles. It is sustained by a British culture forged by this interaction, and by the memory of shared historical achievements and shared heroes. If British identity has weakened appreciably in the last few decades, this does not mean that it is an imperialist fabrication as some like to claim. On the contrary, British patriotism has flagged because the policies of cosmopolitan elites have endeavoured, with some success, to divorce ‘Britishness’ from its authentic historical and cultural basis. Eager to incorporate foreign elements into our family of nations, the elites have chosen to define a Briton as any person who holds British citizenship. But, what does ‘Britishness’ mean when anyone who just stepped off the boat from God knows where can become a ‘Briton’? Answer: Nothing! If a given term can mean ‘anything’ then it means precisely ‘nothing’. Under such circumstances, it is understandable that many English and Scots are retreating from their common British identity and beginning to think of themselves as only English or Scottish. Disenchanted with an identity that has been abased and rendered largely meaningless, they cling all the more desperately to their first, ethnic identity which still retains specific, exclusive cultural significance. If the decline of British unity and patriotism is to be reversed, ‘Britishness’ must be rejoined to its exclusive historical and cultural foundations in the eyes of all true Britons.

Civil Society Relies on Culturally Specific Values and National Identity

Let us return to a question we posed earlier, and attempt to answer it in the light of all that has been said. An internal investigation of the Metropolitan police revealed that Asian officers are ten times more likely to be reported for misconduct and corruption than white officers. The report concluded that Asian officers, Muslims in particular, found it difficult to overcome their inclination to rob the public purse and abuse their authority for the benefit of their own communities. What explains the low rate of corruption among white Britons? Given the assaults that elites have been making on our traditions and culture for decades, it is unlikely that very many of them have the confident, mature sense of national identity which I have been describing. Perhaps I am not giving them sufficient credit, however. In any event, it seems likely that these white British public servants have retained at least a trace of that old British sense of honour which holds that any betrayal of the public trust is a shameful act. The British public is still, at some level, not merely their employer, but a larger community, encompassing their own individual communities, to which they owe a certain measure of loyalty. As Burke tried to demonstrate, these ‘civic’ values have their origin in traditional British culture, in our British ‘manners’. They are sustained by feelings of patriotism and solidarity, our ‘public affections’. If that culture were stamped out or forgotten, and if those feelings were extinguished utterly, then ‘civic values’ would disappear with them. If there were to come a time when white Britons no longer saw the British public as their community, British civil society would come to an end. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, after all the violence he had done to our British national identity and our sincere feelings of patriotism, had the gall some years ago to say ‘You have a duty to give back to the society in which you live.’ Our question to him would be as follows: ‘Where, you insufferable ignoramus, is that sense of duty to come from after you have nearly eradicated its only source?’

The fact is that we need our own British identity in order to live prosperously and happily in a cohesive civil society. The more all Britons know about their own national myths, their history, their political, scientific and artistic achievements, and their heroes, the better they will understand that they are all joint owners of great and unique National Treasury, from which all draw funds and to which all owe debts. The more people love their country, the more they are prepared to contribute to the common good. The greater the love is, the stronger are the feelings of mutual obligation, and hence, the less there is of class exploitation, crime, and unprofitable partisan wrangling. A mature sense of national identity cannot eliminate all social ills, of course. Human beings are flawed creatures, and thus it is not in their power to create perfect societies. There is no way to ensure that all men and women will always know their proper duty and be willing to do it. But allowing for and supporting the development of a mature sense of national identity among the citizenry is the likeliest way to get citizens to do their duty voluntarily, and even joyfully.

A civil society grounded in a strong sense of national identity is the best that we can hope for in an imperfect world populated by imperfect human beings. But this best of all arrangements has been seriously weakened, and is in danger of being destroyed irreparably by mass immigration. This is because the waves of Asian, Middle Eastern, African and other immigrants brought to our islands by successive Conservative and Labour governments, cannot be incorporated into our national family. Many of these multifarious immigrant groups have manners and values that are simply incompatible with our own. As the American academic Samuel Huntington has written, ‘the people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy.’[ii] When people can find no common ground in such matters, they find it difficult even to occupy the same living space. That they should work together for some sort of common good, whose general parameters they could never agree upon, is out of the question. Manners and values are rooted in cultural traditions, which are the basis of group identities. And here we approach the central problem. These immigrant groups all have their own identities, just as we have our own. They are no more willing to give up their respective identities than we are ours. This means that the conflicting loyalties, tensions and feelings of resentment which are breaking down the civil order in our nation will not cease. What is to be done?

Liberalism vs. Realism

A couple decades ago, when the liberal gurus finally became aware of the potential problem which mass immigration was creating, they searched abroad for a novel solution. They found one in Canada. Never mind the fact that ‘cultural pluralism,’ or as it is more commonly known, ‘multiculturalism’ never really worked in Canada, or anywhere else for that matter. As the scholar Anthony Smith wrote in 1995, ‘with the fate of so many poly-ethnic states hanging in the balance, it would be a bold person who could make out a case today for the success of “plural nations”.’ After the terrorist attacks the liberal elites realised that they had erred, but the shock was not enough to cause them to actually see their error. Only those who are not blinded by modern liberal orthodoxy can identify the mistake. The liberal intellectuals themselves just flail helplessly. At the end of his article ‘Too Diverse?’ (which, incidentally, is worth reading) the liberal journalist David Goodhart very nearly hits upon the truth. He writes, ‘People will always favour their own families and communities; it is the task of a realistic liberalism to strive for a definition of community that is wide enough to include people from many different backgrounds, without being so wide as to become meaningless.’[iii] He starts out well, but after the semicolon it all falls to pieces. Apparently, the task for ‘realistic liberalism’ (oxymoron?) — now that multiculturalism has failed — is to create a new definition of national community (a new identity) that ‘British’ people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds will be able to embrace as their own. Goodhart — bless his good heart! — fails to give even a hint of what this new identity would look like, of course. A more recent article from him on the same topic leaves us none the wiser on this point. His failure to elaborate on the question of all questions should not surprise us, however, for the task he has set for himself cannot be done. The smartest man or group of men could not do it, except perhaps with the assistance of black magic, some sort of socio-political alchemy!

Indeed, it is no longer possible to speak of ‘realistic liberalism.’ The creature is extinct; it let out its last gasp at some point shortly after the Second World War. Realistic liberalism, when the beast still lived, said very different things. John Stuart Mill, the most prominent liberal of the 19th century wrote ‘It is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities… Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities.’[iv] To Mill, the idea that one could throw a bunch of different nationalities together under one government, and convince them to abandon their traditional identities in order to adopt a new one approved by the state, was not realism. This was fantasy; and it still is fantasy.

Why is the new identity project an impossible fantasy? For the answer I turn to a scholar who has spent most of his professional career studying nationalism and national identity, Dr Anthony D. Smith. According to Smith, ‘cultures and collective identities…are the product of a host of social, political, and cultural traditions, values, memories, and symbols at the popular level which have coalesced over time to produce a common heritage.’ Collective identities are the ‘precipitate of generations of shared memories and experiences.’ They are the product of slow growth which happens of its own accord; they cannot be instantly cooked up by imaginative intellectuals and disseminated to a credulous populous. Collective identities depend on ‘historical embeddedness,’ on specific cultural and historical contexts. A national narrative must have mass popular appeal. If it is to strike a popular chord, it must be authentic. Says Smith, ‘a nation must be furnished with an adequate and authentic past.. Authenticity is crucial, it attests to the originality, the self-generating nature of the culture community.’ The requirement of authenticity, of an authentic past, thus severely limits the possibilities for manipulation by elites.[v]

What sort of collective identity could be formed from the incommensurable and incompatible religious and ethnic traditions of the British people and all the newcomers currently occupying our poor country? There is no racial or cultural commonality between them. Though the British can be said to have a common past with the peoples whose lands they once colonized, the memories of this past evoke resentment and recrimination rather than feelings of brotherly love. Any ‘new identity’ which attempted to encompass Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and the ethnic traditions of a score of different nationalities would be incongruous and unintelligible. It would be so broad and contain so many internal contradictions that it would be artificial and hence, meaningless. Liberal intellectuals have already had a go at creating a new common culture. They lisped something to us about the comparable popularity of ‘Fish and Chips’ and ‘Chicken Tikki Masala,’ mumbled something about certain concerts and film festivals, and thereafter grew silent. That was all they could come up with. Needless to say, foods and entertainments are only the trappings of culture; they are not the soul of the thing. Did anyone ever shed a tear over a dish of curry, unless perhaps it was over-spiced? When the British people resisted the Nazis in the Second World War, were they fighting for the right to eat Fish and Chips instead of Bratwurst? No, the thing cannot be done. The result of a combination of so many disparate traditions will be either no culture at all, or, what amounts to the same thing, an artificial, superficial culture lacking the common myths, history, and heroes in which a culture’s emotive power is concentrated.

What, then, can we expect from the New Labour (and now LibCon) initiative to ‘integrate’ communities? We can expect an intensification of the processes we have already witnessed. When different racial and cultural communities are forced to occupy the same living space, two opposite tendencies reveal themselves simultaneously. On the one hand, there is always a minority from each group – in the main, persons who are estranged from their own communities, or are confused about their identity – who will intermarry with members of other groups. This can be tragic, not just for these individuals, but more especially for their children. According to a recent study conducted in United States (which suffers from the same problems as we do) mixed race children are 30-65% more likely to engage in risky or violent behaviour than their single-race peers.[vi] What does this finding tell us? It tells us that people need to have an identity. Mixed race children, because of the tragic decision of their parents, do not know who they are, or with whom they belong. What is true for individuals is true for societies as well. If majorities were to engage in racial mixing – which is what Liberals want most of all – then the result would be an entire society of persons bereft of an identity. The only culture that such a society could have would a be a shallow, artificial one on a par with the current global ‘pop culture’. Unable to be rooted in a collective identity, it would be a society of confused egotists, seeking their own gratification, prone to addiction, temptation, and senseless violence, and unable to believe in anything great or beautiful. However, this scenario is less likely than the one I will discuss below, because the numbers of those who mix are small.

The second tendency that we witness when different racial and cultural groups are forced together is described by Dr Anthony Smith as follows: ‘bringing disparate cultures into close proximity and revealing their differences openly encourages ethnic and historical comparison and the proliferation of fragmenting ethnic nationalisms.’[vii] Liberals believe that when different racial and cultural groups are brought together, they will realize that they are not so different from each other after all, and therefore embrace each other as brothers. But experience has shown the opposite. Suddenly brought into close proximity to one another, the different groups see their differences all the more clearly, and this leads to stronger affirmations of their own unique cultural values and identity. Clearly, in Britain and indeed throughout the world, this is the more frequently observed tendency. The scenario for Britain, then, is a continuation and an escalation of the ethnic and religious conflict that has already begun. In the end, the victors in this conflict will be those groups which breed most prolifically and fight for their group interests most energetically. On current trends, the victors will not be the British.

Conclusion

Given our assessment of the problem, only one solution presents itself. In order to preserve and restore a disintegrating British civil society, the British people must regain a mature sense of national identity based upon race and traditional culture. As a general rule, peoples from Third World countries cannot be a part of this identity. Let us be very clear on this point. An honest social scientist (of which there are few today) cannot make categorical statements. He can make reasonable judgements about what he thinks majorities of men and women will do; these judgements will not hold true for every last individual. As a general rule, however, it seems evident that race and religion are the two most important factors in determining how an individual will define himself and to what group he will show the greatest loyalty. Therefore, race and religion are the best criteria for determining who ought to be allowed to come to Britain. As we have seen, it is quite possible for Christian Europeans, in limited numbers, to be assimilated into our society and culture. They look like us; their values are not so dissimilar from ours. First generation European immigrants will not be British; the second generation might not be either. But after a few generations, when they no longer speak the tongue of their ancestors and no longer maintain ties with their original homeland, it becomes possible for them to think of themselves as British. They can come to admire our national myths, our history and heroes as much as we ourselves do. Small numbers of European immigrants do not constitute a threat to our identity. Of course, mass immigration from Europe is another matter. That we received 500,000 Poles in the last few years is simply an outrage, both for Britain, which has absorbed a mass of people too large to be easily assimilated, and for Poland, which has lost so many of its sons and daughters.

As for Third World immigrants, it is exceedingly difficult for them to be fully assimilated into our culture regardless of the numbers. Leaving aside for a moment the more obvious problems we have discussed in this essay, let us consider those small numbers of second or third generation UK citizens of third world origin who seem well assimilated. Ask a ‘British’ Indian to name his favourite hero. Do you honestly expect him to say ‘Admiral Horatio Nelson’? Clearly not. You are likely to hear ‘Mahatma Gandhi.’ And who can blame him? Gandhi truly was a hero for the Indians. But to us he was that ‘nauseating fakeer’ (as Winston Churchill called him) who inspired his people do to violence against us. Now, ask a black ‘Briton’ the same question. Will he name King Alfred? No. – Nelson Mandela, the ANC leader who led his black brethren in heartfelt songs about killing off the whites. Put this question to a ‘British’ Muslim. Will he name Queen Elizabeth I (‘Good Queen Bess’ as she is affectionately called by the English)? Obviously not. And we shudder to think whom he might name! The fact is that racial and religious identity are very strong. One way or another, these minorities will perceive themselves as different from us. There may be a few blacks, Indians, and even Muslims who truly admire our culture, and prefer it to that of their ancestors and kinsmen abroad. But such men and women are few. As for the vast majority, they can at best be fair-weather friends to us. They enjoy our relative economic prosperity and social order, and the free benefits many of them receive, but their hearts are with their people, not with us.

What we must do, then, in the first instance, is to summon the will to expel those who express open hostility toward our people and our way of life. And after that, we must encourage the rest, who perhaps bear us no malice but remain here for economic reasons, to be honest with themselves and relocate to the places where their hearts are. Indians, one of the most successful groups to have immigrated to Britain, have already begun to return in small numbers to the home of their ancestors. The BBC reported in 2006 that the Ministry of Indian Overseas Affairs had granted over 40,000 Overseas Citizenship Certificates to people of Indian origin. One Scottish-born Indian woman explains the feelings she had growing up in Britain as follows: ‘Somewhere at the back of your mind you’re wondering about this country that your parents came from, and wondering if maybe you belong there.’ Throughout Britain, many true sons and daughters of Pakistan, Nigeria, China and a hundred other countries are no doubt having similar thoughts. The goal, in any program of voluntary repatriation, should be to reduce ethnic minority populations to the point that they are politically insignificant, and thus unable to extract any special concessions from the British people.

I conclude this essay with the following thought: If our country is to be saved, it is clear that a majority of Britons (the true kind, not the counterfeits!) must be mobilized to take back the State and other national institutions from the cosmopolitan global capitalists and multiculturalists who are destroying our Nation. We are speaking here of a veritable revolution (one without violence, we hope!) which will require acts of heroism and sacrifice from millions of our people. But how can we mobilize millions in an age dominated by selfishness and cowardice? In his famous rebuke to the French revolutionaries of 1789, Edmund Burke wrote

‘If the last generations of your country appeared without much lustre in your eyes, you might have passed them by, and derived your claims from a more early race of ancestors. Under pious predilection for those ancestors, your imaginations would have realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom, beyond the vulgar practice of the hour: and you would have risen with the example to whose imitation you aspired. Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to respect yourselves.’[viii]

Too many Britons, it seems, as they watch their country die, scarcely have any concept of what is being lost. Disgusted by the ‘vulgar practice of the hour’ they become apathetic; they feel powerless to change things, or decide that the country, in its present disastrous condition, is not worth saving. Such persons are like amnesiacs. When an individual suffers from amnesia, he is robbed of his past. A man who knows not his past knows not who he is; his very personality changes. He may have been brave, honest, strong, independent-minded, and industrious before, but now, bereft of the memories of his life experience, he is timid, weak, cynical and lazy. The only way to restore an amnesiac to his former self is to restore his memory. The same is true for a Nation suffering from National Amnesia.

The imaginations of our apathetic citizens must be turned to earlier times, to heroes of our past, so that Britons may re-learn British virtue and wisdom, and be inspired by British examples of heroism and self-sacrifice. With images of British heroes in his mind’s eye, our apathetic citizen will better understand what is currently at stake and will better know his own potential for greatness and his duties to the country. Moreover, he will be better prepared to recognize and appreciate those few heroes that our present generation has brought forth, and to understand that it is his duty to follow them. In this struggle for the survival and rebirth of Great Britain, it is clear that the English will have to shoulder the heaviest burden. What hero and what period should they turn to? I would suggest King Alfred, the only king whom the English ever called Great. King Alfred spilled his own blood defending the English from foreign invasion. He educated his people: He provided them with ancient wisdom, which he himself translated into their native tongue, and gave them books and chronicles about their history as a people. Throughout his life, he prayed to God for the English people, prayed that the English might show themselves to be a people worthy before God. All the things that we must do now to prevent the collapse of our nation and restore it to glory – these very deeds King Alfred did then, so that English people would survive, and an English nation might be born. It is time the present essay was concluded, but let us look more closely at the character and the achievements of King Alfred in the next one.

[i]. John Tyndall, ‘More about Being British’ http://spearhead.com/0005-jt1.html

[iv]. Mill explains this assertion as follows: ‘Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.’ John Stuart Mill Considerations on Representative Government.

‘Among the findings, the study found that multiracial adolescents were significantly more likely than white, black or Asian-American youth to have smoked cigarettes. The odds were 38 percent less for whites, 32 percent less for blacks and 51 percent less for Asian-Americans. Similarly, whites, blacks and Asian-Americans were 45, 30 and 65 percent less likely, respectively, to have ever consumed alcohol than multiracial youngsters.’ […]

‘When it came to violent behaviors such as carrying a weapon, being in a fight and threatening to stab someone, multiracial youth again were significantly more likely to report having engaged in these activities than were whites or Asian-Americans. Fewer differences were found between multiracial and black youths, although the multiracial adolescents reported significantly higher rates of hurting someone badly in a fight (39 percent) and having carried a gun (46 percent).’

Multiculturalism, if we will be honest, is only the very latest in a series of ‘darling schemes’ by which our nation has been oppressed in the last fifty years or so. It is the latest, and quite possibly the most baleful of all the ideological enchantments whose influence we have hitherto come under. Just how it all began, just how we managed to fall into this state of the darkest, most dreadful all-enveloping confusion, which now threatens to wipe us from the face of the earth if we do not at once contrive to extricate ourselves from it – just how all this came to pass, I am not prepared to say. Thomas Carlyle once remarked that ‘it is indeed strange how prepossessions and delusions seize upon whole communities of men; no basis in the notion they have formed, yet everybody adopting it, everybody finding the whole world agree with him in it, and accept it as an axiom of Euclid; and, in the universal repetition and reverberation, taking all contradiction of it as an insult, and a sign of malicious insanity, hardly to be borne with patience.’ It is indeed strange – quite unaccountable, really, a phenomenon such as this! But, all the same, it is a fact of our lives just now. Have we not asked our New-Labourites and other Liberals time and time again, just what are the real benefits of this thing called multiculturalism? And have we not found them, on every single occasion, to be totally incapable, for all their zeal, of delivering a coherent explanation? What man or woman among us has heard a real argument from the likes of them? It is always the same incoherent, cloying ‘repetition and reverberation’ that we are forced to listen to. And all one has to say is ‘Well sir, I don’t buy it’ and suddenly one becomes ‘maliciously insane,’ an ignorant racist, and what’s more, a Nazi and a denier of the Holocaust! Impossible to say how we managed to get ourselves mired in such utter foolishness; suffice it to say that we are in it, in it very deeply just at present, and, God help us, we must find our way out of it!

Failure of Liberal Thought

I have said that multiculturalism has no real basis, that, as an idea it is but a semblance; has in fact no substance. Though in reality it has no basis at all, this has not prevented Liberal theorists from trying, by various philosophical conjuring tricks, to invent one for it. Perhaps it will be worth-while to explore some of these ‘theories’, since most of us no doubt have been left quite bewildered by the endless ‘jangle and babble’ of the journalists, politicians and other ‘talking heads’ in our society. In defence of multiculturalism, some Liberal ‘scholars’ like to dredge up the old Utilitarian doctrines of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They start with a very simple proposition, namely, that man is at bottom nothing but a selfish pleasure-seeker, and that the world is, in its essence, a very large and elaborate amusement park. They express it less offensively, of course, with much meaningless jargon thrown in to confuse the matter, but if their doctrine does not boil down to this that I have said, then, I say, it boils down to nothing at all. For this selfish pleasure-seeking man our Liberal theorists have cooked up, all things in this world are objects of prospective pleasure; that is, all material goods, religions, cultural activities, and even other persons are mere things from which he may derive some amount of pleasure, and that is the extent of their meaning to him. It being assumed that the summum bonum (‘greatest good’) for a human being is pleasure, it is concluded that the best human society will be that in which the absolute maximum quantity (or ‘diversity’) of commodities, religions, customs, and everything else imaginable is available for the pleasure of the public. Each individual, born into a multicultural society with its various commodities, religions, customs &c. &c. will have infinite prospects of pleasure open to him, and therefore each individual will be able to lead a happy life, or so the theory goes.

Humans are merely shoppers

Allow me to re-state the argument in simpler terms. Many of you have at one time encountered the old Utilitarian slogan, ‘the world is a workshop, and man is the worker in it.’ Well, the new Utilitarian slogan should be, ‘the world is a department store, and man is the shopper in it.’ Simply put, the liberal theorists referred to above believe that man is a shopping animal, an animal whose purpose in life is to go shopping. Moreover, they believe that the world is essentially one gigantic market-place where this shopping can occur. They assume that in order to be happy, a man needs to be surrounded at all times by multifarious consumer goods, which he can sample or purchase at his pleasure. They then claim that multiculturalism is a natural extension of their universal shopping principle. Man must not only be surrounded by multifarious consumer goods; he must also be surrounded by multifarious cultures and religions. Multiculturalism is said to broaden the range of ‘pleasant experiences’ that a shopper can have. Just as a man may go shopping at the marketplace of consumer goods, so may he go shopping at the marketplace of cultures and the marketplace of religions. Thus are his chances of experiencing pleasure and amusement increased dramatically. But is it really possible to take any of this rubbish seriously? Is religious worship nothing but an ‘intriguing experience’ to be had every now and then for a diversion? Is culture but a series of ‘entertainments’ to be paid for, enjoyed for an hour or two, and forgotten the next day? Honestly, what could be more absurd than a theory such as this? Let us consider for a moment a young British man. This man learned the value of hard work early, and has supported himself since he was eighteen. He now has a wife and two small children who attend church with him on Sundays. Like any conscientious parent in these times of ours, he worries often about what the future has in store for his children. I ask you, how shall it please him to know that there are so many thousand mosques in his country? In what way will it be comforting to him to know that he might go and experience the Islamic Faith at any time, without even leaving Britain! In fact there’s a mosque just across the way there! How convenient! Never mind that their manner of worship is completely alien to him, that their religious principles are quite contrary to his own, and that, with that little gold cross hanging from his neck, it is doubtful they would even let him past the door — How joyful it would be to visit there, and experience an alien religion!

Cultural void

Another rather different theory of multiculturalism goes something like this: It is assumed, first of all, that all creativity in individuals and societies is the result of conflict, the clash of different ideas and beliefs. That proposition made, it is asserted that all the great artistic and literary productions that we now see in our national museums and libraries are to be credited not to the individual genius of the artists or writers who produced them, but to whatever religious or ideological ferment may have been in existence at the time. Never mind the inspiration of true genius, or the noble perseverance, the hard work of truly devoted men and women; we have only the conflicts of the times to thank for all our art and literature! The claim is then made that as religious and political strife have brought about creativity, so must a clash of cultures, a clash of races, a clash of religions. What an extraordinary claim! I think we have all seen what delightful things have been produced in the last 30 years or so by racial and religious tension of this kind. But perhaps that’s too cynical. Surely it has created something, not brought us death and destruction only. Well, yes, to be sure, we have seen that too. Not too long ago I saw something called a ‘cross-cultural rap’ featured in one of our newspapers. This particular piece, far less aggressive and uncouth than most I have encountered, was touted by the editor as an example of the ‘creativity’ coming out of our so-called ‘multicultural communities.’ Some of you have no doubt seen this or other similar ‘works of art’. What, then, are we to make of it? Perhaps if we were to try to define what precisely rap is, as an art form? This is not so easily done. Properly speaking, it cannot be called music, nor yet, I think, may it be described as poetry. What then? – a sort of semi-articulate disharmonious chaotic jangling mishmash of the two, as near as I can tell. Very well, but that is only the form; I suppose art doesn’t necessarily have to be pleasing to the senses. Perhaps it is, for all that, grand and inspiring, tender and moving, profound and edifying, or even mildly thought-provoking in some way?

These naive liberal theorists seem to have forgotten, or else, in order to support their erroneous theories, have found it necessary to deny, what creativity in reality requires: that is , most of all, two things that your ‘rap artist’ does not have, and never will have, namely, Genius and Devotion. Genius, at least in an artist, is simply an ability to see things clearly, an ability to discern in all things the eternally true from the eternally false. It is, above all, an immense power of discernment, which only a select few among us can boast of. And of course, such genius also involves an uncommon talent of self-expression, an ability to express oneself, whether in song, on canvas, in poetry or prose, in a way that is irresistibly inspiring. That is what I take to be ‘genius.’ Equally important is devotion, of utmost importance, I say, that the creative genius focus his immense powers of perception and expression on something worthwhile, a subject of great significance both to him and to us, his audience. We British have been blessed with many such devoted geniuses in the course of our long history. It can be argued, I think, that the greatest poets our nation has ever seen were all ardent patriots, all devoted to their country and their people. Such poets wrote with the express aim of enriching our culture and language. It is well-known, that whenever Milton had occasion to sign his name to a document, he would make sure that there could be no confusion as to his nationality; ‘John Milton, Englishman’ thus always did he sign his name. This is the man who resolved at the age of 30 to

fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end–that were a toilsome vanity– but to be an interpreter and relater of the best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome… did for their country, I in my proportion with this over and above of being a Christian, might do for mine: not caring to be once named abroad… but content with these British Islands as my world…

Milton did not disappoint; he wrote about our Christian religion, and I know of no Christian poet or prophet who has since surpassed him. Tennyson, our poet laureate during the latter half of the 19th century, wrote in celebration of our ancient notions of chivalry, of our legends of King Arthur. Shakespeare is called by many a ‘universal’ poet, but what, then, are his Histories, Henry the Fifth among others, if they are not national epics? These men of genius used their talent for the glory of England; each was in his own time the voice of England. And their voices are still heard, I think, at least by those of us who have not yet succumbed to the cult of multiculturalism that has swept over these islands in recent years. All our great achievements in art and literature were the products of great minds and devoted souls, such as our Shakespeare, Milton, and Tennyson had. What need have we, then, of the black rapper, with his head full of ‘racial tensions’ and a few other extraneous noises, utterly empty of all else, what need have we of him and other cheap imports like him? What contributions these people of the Third World may make in the way of culture are as nothing compared to what we British already have, nothing compared to the culture we have developed over a span of more than a thousand years.

No need for immigration

Such a lot of extraordinary rubbish our liberal journalists have cooked up, it would seem! Yet, I think we ought to give them credit for at least attempting to find some method in all of this multicultural madness. Trouble is, that in the last analysis, there simply is no method to be found in it, no method whatsoever in the government’s mad policy of forced multiculturalisation. Truth be told, multiculturalism offers no advantages to the native British population, offers disadvantages only. Far from improving our quality of life, far from making our lives more exciting and enjoyable, it makes life more dangerous and bitter for many among us, especially for those living in our Northern communities. Third World immigrants do not enrich our culture; on the contrary they contribute to its impoverishment. And what of other issues, such as Crime, and the Economy? Strangely enough, it appears that crime rates have gone up throughout our island in proportion as immigration from the Third World has increased. Furthermore, the government and the media always insist that mass immigration will be necessary to maintain our economy in the coming years, but even these so called purely ‘economic arguments’ of theirs don’t hold water. According to the EU’s own numbers, if Europe wants to maintain its 5-to-1 ratio of working-age persons (15 to 64) to pensioners and elderly (65 and over), Europe must import — 1.4 billion people from Africa and Asia by mid-century! Such as scheme as this is not only unfeasible; it is simply fantastic! If, in order to meet their economic targets, the EU bureaucrats find it necessary to import 1.4 billion people from the Third World, then it is clear that their economic targets are unrealistic. Clearly, it is time for the EU planners to go back to the drawing board, or, better yet, it is time for said ‘planners’ go before another sort of board, if not to the gallows directly, and allow the sovereign states of Europe to tackle their own economic problems individually.

Blair & Co. and the Proponents of “One World”

Something here must be said, I think, apropos of the recent and present occupants of Number 10 Downing Street. Not at all clear, however, what ought to be said about them. On the one hand, it is very tempting to dismiss Blair, his successor Brown, and the new LibCon creature, Cameron-Clegg, as typical politicos, men who, notwithstanding their impressive talent for tongue-wagging, are in all other aspects that we are apt to consider in a leader of men (to wit: intellect, know-how, integrity, courage, accountability) sadly, sadly deficient! The manifold failures of this government, daily unfolded in our newspapers, would appear, on the face of them, to be attributable merely to the negligence and incompetence of worthless men. These are not men of long views; they do not consider what is in the long-term best interests of this country. These are men who look forward to the next election only, they look ahead no farther. Perhaps that really is the whole extent of it. On the other hand, one is tempted to see them in an altogether different light, to see them, in Carlyle’s words, as ‘Councillors of state [who] sit plotting and playing their high chess game whereof the pawns are men.’ In all likelihood they themselves for the most part pawns of the multinational corporations that fund their election campaigns. But there is something more sinister at work as well.

A review of any of the former Prime Minister Blair’s asinine speeches will reveal the same tendency in his thinking. Blair wanted to ‘foster global interdependence and make it a force for good, for our own nation and the wider world.’ He goes on: ‘The only way to deal with this is if there’s pain all round so that there can be gain all round,’ and suchlike phrases. Everyone knows that Blair, and his successors, are firm believers in globalisation, but we must understand is that globalisation is much more than a merely ‘economic’ programme. At the heart of it is a certain species of fanaticism, much akin, as it happens, to the fanaticism of Karl Marx. In the words of a contemporary journalist, ‘It is inevitable that at some time in our collective future, this planet, with all its many shades of humanity, will unite into a single whole.’ Note the use of the word ‘inevitable,’ a very emotional word. Marx too thought that the unification of all nations by Communism was ‘inevitable.’ Lenin believed him, so convinced was he of the inevitability of it, in fact, that he resolved, by hook or by crook, to make it happen. He attempted to make it happen, and a great people, the Russian people, was brought to its knees, and still has not recovered from that experience. But what has this to do with Blair and Brown and Cameron-Clegg? Very simple, if you accept the premise I’ve laid out above. Why do Labour and LibCon governments refuse to clamp down on immigration, against the clear wishes of the British people? Because Blair, Brown and Cameron-Clegg have partaken of that poisonous elixir, fanaticism, ‘whereof,’ says Jonathan Swift, ‘whoever drinks, that person’s brains fly out of his nostrils.’ Because Blair and his clones sincerely believe that ‘the unification of all shades of humanity into a single whole’ is inevitable, and they have resolved that by mass immigration they shall bring it to pass. But in their hysteria, they do not seem to realise that it is only white countries that will be ‘unified’ in this manner. In Alien Nation, a book about America’s immigration woes, Peter Brimelow reports the responses of the Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indian embassies, when asked about the possibility of immigrating to their country:— China: ‘China does not accept any immigrants. We have a large enough population.’ Taiwan: ‘You need Taiwanese relatives by blood or marriage’ India: ‘Are you of Indian origin?’… Long after Britain, Europe, Russia and America have been ‘unified’ and ‘multiculturalised’ beyond recognition, China, Taiwan, India, and in fact most non-white countries will have retained their dominant ethnic majorities. We will then be no closer to the ideal of ‘universal brotherhood’: South America, that great experiment in racial mixing, will continue to be a racially stratified mess. And the African tribes, Hindus, Muslims, and Chinese in their billions, disdaining to mix with each other, will continue to vie with each other for regional and global dominance, while members of the Caucasian race will find themselves outnumbered and unwelcome in the homes of their ancestors.

[Continuation in Part II]

Parts II and III examine some key arguments of nationalist political philosophy and discuss questions of national identity in Britain.

The Devil’s Mission

The Devil's Review is an online magazine for culture, reviews, philosophy and aristocratic politics. Its writers are young scholars and others who have an interest in discussing and promoting aristocratic virtues, culture and learning. Both writers and editors alike have common as well as specialized interests within these spheres, as is revealed by their involvement in and contributions to organizations and publications such as The Ludovici Club, Alternative Right, the H.L. Mencken Club, Taki's Magazine, and The Quarterly Review.